23 Aug
2021
23 Aug
'21
7:21 p.m.
Hello,
For the sake of illustration to folks who are not necessarily used to
thinking about what computers do at the machine code level, I'm interested
in collecting examples of single instructions for any CPU architecture that
are unusually prolific in one way or another. This request is highly
underconstrained, so I have to rely on peoples' good taste to determine
what counts as "interesting" here.
This is perhaps outside even the vague bounds you were thinking of, but it
probably wins the 'unusually prolific' prize by a gigabyte-mile.
Behold, the hidden, secret and heinous X86 2-byte 'launch instruction' 0x0F,
0x3F.
See this talk about the discovery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmTwlEh8L7g
DEF CON 26 - Christopher Domas - GOD MODE UNLOCKED Hardware Backdoors in redacted x86
46:03
DEFCON Conference Oct 23, 2018
Complexity is increasing. Trust eroding. In the wake of Spectre and Meltdown, when it
seems that things cannot get any darker for processor security, the last light goes out.
This talk will demonstrate what everyone has long feared but never proven: there are
hardware backdoors in some x86 processors, and they're buried deeper than we ever
imagined possible. While this research specifically examines a third-party processor, we
use this as a stepping stone to explore the feasibility of more widespread hardware
backdoors.
After which you will never trust your Intel-based PC, ever again.
Guy